September 4, 2008
Thai Language Lessons
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Sorry for the delay again, but I’ve been busy at work. I’ve got some time off now so you’ll see a few updates over the next couple of days.
In my lesson two weeks ago we started by continuing with the module old book. I suggested the chapter on Buddhism in Thailand, not so much because I’m interested in it (I’m certainly not religious), but rather because it’s one of those issues that, like it or not, comes up frequently in daily life here. We talked and, for the most part, agreed with each other. This lead into the choice of homework assignment “ความเชื่อของผม” (My Beliefs).
After this, because my teacher had asked me if there was any other material that I’d be interested in studying, we looked at the preface to พันธ์หมาบ้า (Mad Dogs and Co.) written byชาติ กอบจิตติ Chart Korbjitti in 1988. An English translation of the book can be found over at www.thaifiction.com. Edit: Thanks to Rikker for correcting my previous mistake re Chart Korbjitti’s SEA Write win.
The preface to the book was basically an warning for all the bad language, violence etc in the book. He relates the story to previous experiences from his teenage years and comments that whilst he doesn’t wish to apologise for his work, he doesn’t suggest imitating it either.
The story, despite being fiction is based on events and people from his youth, some of whom have passed away. There were one or two words and phrases which I liked so I’ll include them here.
วัยรุ่น [ADJ] teenage; adolescent; boyish; girlish; juvenile; immature; young
วัยคะนอง [N] wild age; age of high-spirits years
เสียชีวิดไปไม่ถึงวัยอันควร died before their time
คนที่อยู่ข้างหลัง the people left behind
August 23, 2008
Thai Language Lessons
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Sorry for the delay in updating but last week was a busy week at work so you’re getting a double dose this week.
My third lesson (12th of August) was fairly straightforward; after handing in my homework (ชาวนา) and correcting that we continued through the school’s module 5 book. We read the 2 chapters on Bangkok กรุงเทพมหานคร as well as the chapter on Chiangmai เชียงใหม่. We spoke about life in Bangkok, work etc. Nothing that exciting.
One thing we did do was go through some vocabulary. I’ve always thought that my biggest weakness with the Thai language is my relatively small active vocabulary, so I asked during my second lesson for my teacher to help me with this. Her suggestion was to give me a few headings each week and have me come up with some vocabulary related to it. Not the most imaginative idea, but successful nevertheless.
This is what I came up with (mostly basic vocab, often included because I’m woried I might have forgotten it or forgotten how to spell it):
ตลาด Market/Market Place
การค้า การค้าขาย business,trade,commerce
ขนของ move things/load things
จัดของ arrange things (as in a market trader bringing and arranging their goods)
ต่อราคา v. bargain
พ่อค้า merchant,trader (male)
แม่ค้า market woman, female shopkeeper
ลูกค้า customer, client
การทำวิจัยตลาด market research
อัตราแลกเปลี่ยน exchange rate (drifting off topic now, I know)
กีฬา Sport
การพักผ่อนหย่อนใจ recreation, relaxation, amusement
การแข่งขัน competition, contest (think sports)
ประกวด contest, compete, contend (think beauty pageant)
ผู้ชนะ winner
ผู้แพ้ loser
รางวัล prize,award
ถ้วยรางวัล trophy,cup
เหรี่ยญรางวัล medal
ผู้ตัดสิน referee
ประตู goal (lit. door)
ลูกโทษ penalty
ตัวสำรอง sub
อาหาร Food
เปรี้ยว sour
หวาน sweet
ขม bitter
จืด tasteless
ปิ้ง v. toast
ทอด fry
ต้ม เดือด boil (the difference apparently is that the first you start from cold)
เตา stove
กะทะ frying pan
เน่า rotten, spoiled
สด fresh
บด crush, grind
คน stir
นึ่ง cook with steam
อากาศ Weather
ฟ้าร้อง thunder
ฟ้าแลบ lightning
สายฟ้า thunderbolt
ลูกเห็บ hail, hailstone
หมอก fog
การพยากรณ์อากาศ weather forecast
สูญเสียน้ำ dehydrate
ผิวเกรียมแดด sunburnt skin
อากาศพิษ polluted air, pollution
ชื้น humid
แห้งแล้ง be dry, arid
August 10, 2008
Thai Language Lessons
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Yesterday I had the second private lesson towards the new Thai competency test. First, I handed in my homework assignment and my teacher corrected it. Some of it sounded a little bit unnatural so was reworded, but nothing major.
We then, as we had previously decided, started going through the old course books from the school that I had used in my first month of study there (I had skipped the first 4 modules so this was module 5).
Module 5 at the school is basically reading comprehension; a collection of short stories, mostly connected to Thai culture with titles such as “The Weekend Market”, “The Chaophraya River” etc.
Back when I studied them the first time we would read one over about 5 hours, stopping to discuss the texts and the vocabulary and grammatical structures within them. Yesterday we read four of them:
ผลไม้ไทย Thai Fruit
กล้วย Bananas
ข้าวและชาวนา Rice and Farmers
ชีวิตตามลำน้ำ Life Along the Waterways
You’ll notice a slight culinary theme to most of the topics, hence the title of this post, เรื่องกินเรื่องใหญ่ rêuang gin rêuang yài meaning, basically, The issue of eating is a big issue. You might also wonder why they included a story about bananas, but if you take a look at this website you’ll realise the importance of this particular fruit in Thai culture.
As we read through the texts, my teacher asked me questions and we chatted about the various issues that came up. After she asked me what was the first thing I thought of when I thought of bananas and I said studying Thai, we talked about the seemingly over importance that Thais place on food in general conversation.
I mentioned that I used to find it strange when eating a very common dish and being asked the inevitable question อร่อยไหม aroi maai. I explained that back home if I was eating, say a cheese sandwich or a packet of crisps, it would be unlikely that a friend would ask. She, of course, found this unusual but amusing, and this is when I got the title for this post.
So a tip for today, if you find yourself eating, say a banana, and you’re getting frustrated with all the questions, you can say, “ก็เป็นกล้วย” well, it’s (just) a banana.
August 3, 2008
Thai Language Lessons
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So, last Friday was my first lesson towards the new test which I will be taking at the end of the year. I have returned to the language school where I previously studied for 5 months full time. This was the same school that my previous teacher came from who prepared me for the P6 exam last year. This time however, I am studying with a different teacher, who actually taught me for 2 of my previous 5 months when I studied ปัญหาสังคม (social problems) and หนังสือพิมพ์ ๒ (newspapers module 2). I remember finding her very helpful and although we didn’t always agree during our discussions of Thai social problems she took our discussions in the best possible way (whilst honing my Thai arguing skills).
What is interesting going back to study after already passing the P6 exam is that the school is now unsure what to do with me. Their whole system is basically built around preparing people for the exam and now having done that it seems to them that I have nothing left to learn. It is also clear that the exam will be slightly different to previous years, but at the moment all the school has to go on is the info I mentioned in my previous post.
Thankfully, I’m not expecting perfection. Just someone who is willing to listen and help. I was glad therefore to see that she had taken my advice of starting off simple and reviewing all the things I have already learned. We spent the first lesson going over book 3 from their course which I had actually skipped when I studied there before. We reviewed the the Thai alphabet which it was clear I was OK with but also discussed some of the rules which although I had taught myself before I had not actually learned in Thai, back when I taught myself how to read.
Two things in particular I found interesting were อักษรนำ which thai-langaguage.com describes here
and คำมูล which the Royal Institute Dictionary defines as follows:
คำมูล น. คําคําเดียวที่ไม่ได้ประสมกับคําอื่น เช่น ยาม แขก นาฬิกา.
(Noun) A single word which isn’t mixed with another word e.g. yaam (time, period) kaek (guest, visitor) naaligaa (watch, clock)
There’s a very good article on this in Thai here which I won’t translate in full but that basically points out the different types of words that fall in to this category. This includes words of one syllable which can be true Thai words and loanwords from other languages e.g. พ่อ Por (father) and ปอนด์ (pound).
It also includes words of more than one syllable where a) none of the syllables have meaning on their own e.g. จิ้งหรีด jîng-rèet (cricket), b) some of the syllables have meaning e.g. กิริยา gì-rí-yaa (manners, verb) only the last syllable here has meaning and finally c) where the word is made up of syllables which have meanings unrelated to the resulting word e.g. นารี naa (farm, field) plus ree (oval) becomes naaree (woman, female).
We didn’t dwell on either subjects in class and it was a nice start to a new series of lessons in that it was very easy going. She set me a short story to write as homework “การเรียนภาษาไทยของผม” and we discussed what we would learn over the next few weeks. We agreed that continuing rapidly through the books I should already know would be a good place to start.
I’ll try to put the homework up here when it’s done and will write again after the next class.
Ben
